Well Worn

Back before it was cool to wear ripped jeans. Back when holes were patched, not celebrated. Back before rips were intentionally and strategically placed. Back then, I had a special pair of jeans - special because they fit me just right. This was a miracle for a curvy girl like me - some of y'all know what I'm talking about. Raise your hand if your Mama sewed darts in the waist of your Levi's so they didn't stick out in the back. Cause if you got them to fit the hips, the waist was several inches too big. But one magical day, I found the perfect pair of jeans in a thrift shop. Perfect because they fit, perfect because they were broken in, perfect because they were cheap. And I wore them all. the. time. Wore them until the knees got stringy and the hems were frayed. Until the denim was white/blue. Until the bottom wore dangerously thin. Stress and all. Then came the day when the backside actually disintegrated when I went to put them on. It was a sad day. Not only did I have to give up my favorite jeans, I had no way of replacing them with a similar pair. They came from the second-hand shop and were a great many fashion cycles past current when I bought them. I find I have been on a search for another pants-miracle ever since.

This is not my only brush with wearing out clothes. I had the best pair of black pants for-ever. I called them my teenage pants. Not because they made me look like a teenager. Not because a teenager would actually wear that style. But because they were over twelve-years-old. The pants themselves were teen-aged. They started out black and sorta slid over the line to charcoal after a few years but grey-is-the-new-black, right? I wore them until the seat busted out - an eventuality which was prepared for and planned on by always wearing a long top/sweater/jacket anytime I wore them. I'm starting to see a connection between the size of the backside and the frailty of the seat-seams. Hmm. Anyway, I just get attached to a thing and wear it until it falls apart. My favorite bathrobe is blue plaid, has been around since December 1987 and is still hanging on. I used to have a bathing suit that was a black one-piece with little bitty bright colored flowers on it. Wore it until it was gray with not-so-tiny-anymore pastel flowers and then it turned transparent in "spots" and my beach-buddies told me it had to go. I still miss that suit. There have been several pairs of pajama pants and a sweet white cotton nightgown that succumbed to old-age and perished. All mourned as cherished comfort-clothes. You will be glad to know (or else mortified) that I draw the line at underwear. I can't abide that falling apart. Something has got to stay intact to try and hold things in some semblance of order. I know. Nobody needed to know that. Sorry.

What is now noble, sustainable, green, environmentally conscious - the wearing out of things, the flaunting of distressed/torn things, used to be scorned. Respectable people didn't dare go out of the house with a rip in sight. It was a sign of poverty or laziness - or both. Even poor people were expected to keep their clothes clean and repaired. There was a little girl in my first-grade class - I still remember her name and can see her face. She had light brown skin, huge eyes so dark they looked black, high cheekbones and stick-straight blue-black hair. Though we didn't use the term then, today we would say she was of Native American descent - not more than a generation or two removed - the characteristics still very strong. She was tall for a first-grader and extremely thin. She had one pair of black tights. There were holes in the knees and runners shot all the way up under her thin cotton dresses that were too short for her height - but she wore them every day. She had a dingy white sweater for when it was cold, it was too little for her and she hugged herself and tugged it around her when we went out on the playground. Her people lived in a tar-paper shack down in the valley. I went one time with my Aunt Altus to deliver some sacks of garden vegetables - we left them on the porch. Altus said they probably wouldn't take them if she tried to hand them at the door but might if we drove off and let them come out and get them after we were down the road. She said the Mama was pitiful but the Daddy was plain sorry. I don't remember her being in school beyond a year or two - most likely they moved on to another shack in some other little town. I've tried to look her up on the internet with no luck. After all these years, I cannot get that little girl out of my mind. And the reason is shameful to me - I was one of the little girls in that class who made fun of her. My insecure little seven-year-old self joined some other insecure little seven-year-old girls and teased her because of her torn tights, her too-short dresses, her too-little sweater. We laughed until she cried, big fat miserable tears - lashing out at us to leave her alone - her face twisted and contorted with anger. This memory has rubbed against my heart for over fifty years and worn a raw place there. Now the tears are mine - shame and regret rolling down my face. How could I have done that? I was little but I knew better. She was the least of these and I was not Jesus to her. I wish I had been the one who stood with her. I am a caring, compassionate person. When I hear of children without coats, I go buy a pile of them... when I hear of hungry little ones, I load up my buggy with peanut butter crackers and canned tuna.... my heart breaks for little girls who are too tall and too skinny and too other.

Enter... epiphany. I cannot go back and treat her well. I cannot undo what was done. I pray she withstood it and has drawn strength from the adversity of those few months. I wish I could tell her how sorry I am. I hope the years have been kind where I was not. But the memory of that meanness has worn a soft-raw-bleeding spot in my heart that refuses to scab over. Maybe that's where compassion flows out of. Maybe I am more aware, more sensitive because of it. Maybe my shame-and-sorrow-worn heart has become a well-worn heart. Oh Lord, let it be so. Only redeem this cruel heart of mine and I will wear it on my sleeve until it busts open at the seams, runs all down my arms and drips off my hands. Selah.